June Millington

June Elizabeth Millington (born April 14, 1948) is a Filipino-American guitarist, songwriter, producer, educator, and actress.

Millington was the founder of the music groups the Svelts and Wild Honey, before becoming co-founder and lead guitarist of the all-female rock band Fanny, which was active from 1970 to 1974. Millington has been called "a godmother of women's music", and is the co-founder and artistic director of the Institute for the Musical Arts (IMA) in Goshen, Massachusetts.

Early life June Elizabeth Millington was born in Manila, the Philippines, on April 14, 1948, the eldest of the seven children of Filipina socialite "Yola" Yolanda Leonor Limjoco Millington, and former United States Navy Lt. Commander John "Jack" Howard Millington. He had graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1939, and was a son of Professor Howard G. Millington, a noted folklorist. June Millington's parents were married in Manila in May 1947, Millington is the older sister of bassist Jean Y. Millington Adamian. with Yola's parents Angel Limjoco and Felisa Limjoco (née Lejano) in various Manila locations, including at 56 R. Pascual Street, San Juan (then part of Rizal province); in the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club in Mandaluyong; near the old American School in Pasay; and on N. Domingo Street, San Juan; and for several months just before they emigrated at the Howell Compound in Quezon City. Additionally, during 1953, Millington and her family lived for a year in Baguio with her grandparents.

At the age of eight, Millington began playing piano to entertain her family, and later listened to music on the radio and attempted to play along on ukulele. Her family encouraged her to sing and play ukulele at gatherings. By 1960 Millington transferred to the Assumption Convent school located in Makati, Metro Manila. Early in 1961, when Millington was in the seventh grade, she heard a girl play the guitar, which jump-started her interest in the instrument.

On her 13th birthday, Millington was given a small, hand-made, mother-of-pearl inlaid guitar by her mother. While on board ship, Millington switched from playing the ukulele to acoustic guitar. On June 22, 1961, the Millington family arrived in the U.S., In an attempt to become more popular and make friends, in 1962, Millington and her sister Jean wrote their first song "Angel in White", Millington recalled that afterwards, "Kids started coming up to us and telling us they liked it. So it dawned on us this was a way to make friends." including the songs of Peter, Paul and Mary and other artists featured on the television program Hootenanny. While students at McClatchy, the Millington sisters formed a band with Zenaida "Zenny" Prodon, an American Field Service exchange student from Meycauayan Institute High School (now Meycauayan College) in Meycauayan, Bulacan, Philippines.

Musical career and biography

1965–1968: The Svelts With her mother's assistance, but against her father's wishes, in late 1964, Millington switched from acoustic guitar to electric guitar and bass According to Millington, the band's name, "came from a word my brother had just learned in school. To be svelte: thin, lithe. It sounded like what we wanted to be, kinda classy!" The Svelts rehearsed initially in Terry's living room in Sacramento. Managed and promoted by Richard "Dick" Leventon, the Svelts performed at sock hops, air force bases, and frat parties and gradually built a following.

Later, Terry was replaced on drums by Filipino American Brie Berry,

After graduation from high school in 1966, Millington enrolled at the University of California, Davis, where, hoping to become a surgeon, in search of fame and fortune. Before recording their first album, In January 1970 keyboardist Nicole "Nickey" Barclay, was added to the Fanny lineup. Millington was the lead guitarist in Fanny with her sister Jean on bass, de Buhr on drums, and Barclay on keyboards. However, in March 1970, Barclay left Fanny to be a member of Joe Cocker's hastily organized Mad Dogs & Englishmen seven-week tour of the U.S., Their first big gig as Fanny was at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium with the Kinks and Procol Harum. In 1999 Fanny fan David Bowie said that Fanny was "extraordinary... they're as important as anybody else who's ever been, ever; it just wasn't their time." They appeared on national TV programs, including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Midnight Special, Don Kirshner Presents, and the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. Additionally, they appeared on The Kenny Rogers Show in Canada, the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test, and Germany's Beat-Club.

Because of tensions within the band, sister of Suzi Quatro, and former member of all-female bands the Pleasure Seekers and Cradle. Thirty years after her breakdown, Millington summarized: "Instead of carrying it all, I just fell apart." Millington moved to Peconic, New York, on Long Island, and soon after to her recently purchased farm on Mead Mountain, Woodstock, New York, to focus on her songwriting and spiritual development. who played bass guitar, cello, and bass. In 1975, Millington worked in New Orleans as a guest musician on the Allen Toussaint-produced album Ain't No Stopping Us Now by the all-female jazz fusion band Isis that had been founded by Ginger Bianco and Carol MacDonald, who had both been in pioneer all-female band Goldie & the Gingerbreads. (often code for lesbian music). which would become the definitive work of the genre. Millington headlined major women's music festivals for decades.

1975–1976: Fanny/ L.A. All-Stars Due to the chart success of Fanny's song "Butter Boy", which became their biggest single, reaching number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 5, 1975, the Millington sisters put together a new line-up of Fanny for a short tour, which also included former Svelts drummer Brie Howard, keyboardist Wendy Haas (formerly of pioneer all-female band the Freudian Slips of Atherton, California), and percussionist Padi Macheta. This incarnation of Fanny played none of the older Fanny songs. This group ultimately morphed into a new all-women band called the L.A. All-Stars, which, by 1976, had generated some interest from record labels (including Arista), but with the stipulation that the band tour as Fanny and play only old Fanny songs, which Millington opposed. In 1976, Millington and the members of the L.A. All-Stars provided backing vocals on Lee Garrett's song "You're My Everything" that reached number 15 in the UK.

In 1976, Millington was part of Cris Williamson's national tour, and toured with Williamson over the next three years, Since then, Millington also produced records for Tret Fure, Meg Christian, Holly Near, Mary Watkins, John Simon, Diane Lincoln, Melanie DeMore, Jamie Anderson, Dorothy Dittrich, Ferron, Ruth Huber, Linq, and Joel Zoss. Additionally, Millington was the audio engineer on records by DeMore, Williamson, Anderson, Dittrich, Sharon Knight, Alice Di Micele, Ferron, Fure, Near, Bitch & Animal, Linq, and Zoss. June Millington was also featured on the 1977 compilation album Lesbian Concentrate: A Lesbianthology of Songs and Poems (Olivia Records LF 915) that was a response to the antigay Save Our Children campaign of Anita Bryant. In 1978, Millington and Robbins collaborated with Williamson on the album Live Dreams, which was a live album of recorded performances, featuring Millington on drums and guitars and Robbins on bass and cello.

1980–1993: Solo albums, Fabulous Records, and personal life In early 1980, Millington started working on her debut solo album, Heartsong, a soft-rock folk album, and toured to support the album. and had separated from Robbins, with Robbins briefly becoming the partner of Cris Williamson. In 1981 Millington started her own record label, Fabulous Records, a subsidiary of Olivia Records. Through most of the 1980s, Millington toured as a solo artist, promoting her albums released on Fabulous Records: Heartsong (1981), Running (1983), and One World, One Heart (1988).

In 1981 Millington produced activist Holly Near's "Fire in the Rain" album for Redwood Records.

In 1984, Millington began her domestic partnership with education activist Ann F. Hackler. Millington moved to the Amherst, Massachusetts area, where Hackler was director of the Women's Center at Hampshire College. The Slammin' Babes continued to perform until mid-2006.

In 2002, Millington was featured in and was also the associate director of Radical Harmonies, a documentary about the history of women's music directed by Dee Mosbacher. Millington was co-composer (with Lee Madeloni) for the 2009 documentary The Heretics, the inside story of a pivotal force in the "second wave" of the Women's Movement written and directed by Joan Braderman.

Play Like a Girl, Millington and her sister Jean's most recent album, was released in August 2011 on Fabulous Records. Millington explained its purpose:

When we started out in 1965, we 'played like a girl'. With this album, we're reclaiming that phrase and making it a statement of power and vision. It's a gift to still be rockin' out, while teaching the next generation how to find their own voices through music.

Beginning in 2011, Millington was artist-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Since 2011, Millington has been completing her autobiography, Land of a Thousand Bridges, that is funded through Kickstarter, with all proceeds to support the work of the IMA .

In February 2013, Millington and fellow Fanny alumni Alice de Buhr and Jean Millington re-recorded two Fanny classic songs for a documentary entitled Feminist: Stories from the Women's Liberation 1963–1970.

The 2021 documentary Fanny: The Right to Rock presents a history of Fanny from their origins through Fanny Walked the Earth.

Millington toured with Tiny Desk Contest Winner Ruby Ibarra in 2025.

Institute for the Musical Arts In 1986, Millington and Hackler founded the Institute for the Musical Arts (IMA) in Bodega, California. The IMA received its nonprofit status in 1987, and operated its studio and programs from the historic Old Creamery in Bodega until 2001, when a 25-acre permanent property was purchased in Goshen, Massachusetts. The IMA's nonprofit mission is to support women and girls in music and music-related businesses. Rooted in the legacy of progressive equal rights movements, IMA's development is guided by the visions, needs, and concerns of women from a diversity of backgrounds. Its programs including a Rock 'n Roll Camp for Girls, and workshops on vocal and instrumental instruction, album production and recording techniques, lyric and music composition, and booking, promotion, and entertainment law.

Awards and recognition Millington has been highly regarded for her work on behalf of women musicians and the LGBT community. Millington indicates that when she was 20 years old she knew she was a lesbian, and that while "everybody" associated with the band Fanny knew,

In 1996 the Audio Engineering Society honored Millington with its Lifetime Achievement award, and also presented Millington the first AES Women in Audio 'Granny' award along with Suzanne Ciani. In 2005, Millington received the Outmusic Heritage Award from magazine founder Carla DeSantis Black, Berklee College of Music and ROCKRGRL magazine.

In February 2016, there was a pop-up gallery multimedia retrospective of Millington's life and career called "Play Like a Girl". Hosted in an empty storefront in downtown Northampton, Massachusetts, this gallery featured photographs, instruments, records, and other rock n' roll memorabilia from throughout Millington's life. This retrospective was inspired, in part, by the May 2015 publication of Millington's autobiography, Land of a Thousand Bridges: Island Girl in a Rock and Roll World.

In 2025, Millington played alongside Ruby Ibarra in NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Contest. After winning the 2025 contest, Ibarra and Millington toured the United States for the Tiny Desk Contest On The Road Tour.

Discography Albums + Albums associated with June Millington Year !! Title !! Artist !! Record label !! Notes

"All Mine" (Jean & June Millington) / "I Need You Need Me" (Barclay) (1973 Reprise Records REP 1148) "Last Night I Had a Dream" (Randy Newman) / "Beside Myself" (Barclay & Millington) (1973 Reprise Records REP 1162) "Summer Song" (Millington) / "Borrowed Time" (Barclay) (UK: January 1973; Reprise Records K 14220)

Millington "Young and in Love" (Millington) (US: 1977; United Artists Records UAXW 1045) "Ladies on the Stage" (Millington) / "Fantasy" (Millington) (US: 1978; United Artists Records) (UK; 1979; United Artists Records UP 36367)

Videography Associate director and interviewee, Radical Harmonies (Woman Vision, 2002; Wolfe Video, 2004; directed by Dee Mosbacher). SUGAR! (independent feature film, 2015) Fanny: The Right to Rock (2021; directed by Bobbi Jo Hart).